|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 3:06:50 GMT
Reminds me of: "Oh, gee, a poll, what a great way to convince me. Not. Funky" Lol, well put, Torin. In this case, however, the pollster appears to have crafted a reasonably evenhanded set of responses, so the information is actually of use. I just finished reading the December thread on subs/random loot, which also had some discussion of sub drop rate - I'll comment more once I read (or more likely skim) the rest of this thread. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 3:17:53 GMT
And just so we are all on the same page, the higher drop rate for the release of Wemic, Furchin, Brownie, etc. was never a "Bug". The rate was intentionally set to the higher level at the time of release to allow those new, high demand (no vets had them), subs to disseminate. The common wisdom at the time was that anything that enabled and encouraged players to start new toons/classes was a good thing. Actually, it was a bug - it went on FAR longer than intended. Other than that, nice figures. It's nice to see someone bringing facts rather than just opinions to the table. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 3:23:03 GMT
Being that way, I believe that BUR subraces shouldn't be considered "regular" BURs, justifying the arguments that their rate drops should be increased, but items very rare and sought after, as an artifact or something like that. Bingo. They are far more permanent, and therefore inherently more valuable, than other BURs, as another poster pointed out - there's no risk of loss. Our balancing isn't going to change - it was determined when we set out the paragon level framework. As another poster noted, however, a number of changes have been made to the server in order to ease run formation and make gameplay easier, so BUR subs are most definitely less 'necessary' than before (heavy irony on the graduated necessity). Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 3:50:25 GMT
Tyranlthixis, the extreme price gradient is not caused by an irrational obsession thing. The price gradient is caused by the drop rate that was drastically reduced specifically to raise BUR sub prices. The question is should it be? Your answer appears to be: "BUR subbies should not be worth 4000% - 12000% more that UR ones." Actually, price is a factor of many things, not a singular cause. These factors are generally condensed into two groups and represented on two curves, supply and demand. Your take in your response to ty ignores the demand aspect completely, considering only supply, which is incorrect. If Ty is correct about irrational obsession over BURs - and both my personal experience and knowledge of game theory indicate that he almost certainly is - then that is absolutely factored into the demand for the subs, contributing to an increased price. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 4:13:53 GMT
When a wis/cha/str artifact ends in auction chests it never goes for less than 2 billions, usually 3, and it provides a single point of dc/ab to a single toon. A BUR book provides that and more, to how many toons you wish, yet some people find it unfair such high prices. Weird. This is a very apt comparison, and part of the reason I tend to think subs are dropping about as they should be. I actually suspect they're undervalued due to too MUCH supply, but player tastes and preferences (economic term of art) have yet to adapt to the changed droprate. Your price comparison tends to support that belief. On the flipside, though, look at UR race pricing, and the picture looks a little different. Part of the problem is likely overavailability of those subs, as well, going WAY back to the introduction of the hells, when they became MUCH more common. That commonness sets a stark contrast, and represents a stark gap in availability. I suspect it is that contrast that drives a lot of the perceptions about BURs being too rare. The 'proper' long-term fix is likely to cut back on availability of UR subs, which would also further encourage use of secret subs. Frankly, though, that'd be a pretty major change, and likely to upset players focused on short-term gains. More likely, we'll wind up making BUR subs slightly more common, despite my belief that they're already too common, to help bridge the gap. That would also help bring the bell curve of the poll closer to centered on 'about right'. Player perception is often wrong (being generally based on subjective opinion rather than objective fact, and highly susceptible to biases), but must still be catered to where feasible in order for them to enjoy the play experience. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 4:41:39 GMT
While I'm not interesting in entering into your exchange with shakua, I will answer one specific question: Let's ask a dev, were the End game areas built around BUR partys or Open subrace/UR/Secret partys? Neither. Both. The question misunderstands the development process in general, and the specific evolution of the hells-level areas. Originally, the hells were met by parties of UR subs in UR gear, and were MUCH MUCH harder. On the flip side, there were a lot more players then, and run formation much easier. Since then, a huge number of changes have been made, with the difficulties of those areas fluctuating up and down. At present, they're much easier than they've ever been in MOST respects, despite some aspects, like KD checks, being more difficult than at some points in the past (original Hells, there WERE no bard epics, and no kd immunity). All of the above is provided neither to support nor undermine your posts, which I'm not going to remark on - I'm posting purely to shed some light. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 4:50:51 GMT
Ah don't waste your time, open-sub builds aren't the reality with today ur books market rate, no need to show good playing to those who don't get it. Lol, isn't that the truth. For the last two pages I've been thinking about increasing bur drop rates and decreasing urs, to align drop rates more reasonably. Might even (eventually) alleviate a lot of the need for the artificial use requirements...in another decade. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 5:04:00 GMT
I consider myself spanked, but seriously it seems to me that reincarnation is part of the argument for drop rate and I did use "drop rates" in the text ;) I've avoided comment, since it really is tangential to the main subject of the thread, but I actually saw the increased costs of reincarnation as an added bonus of the decreased droprates of burs. Reincarnation was originally provided to players to allow them to adapt to changing module conditions, not to upgrade their toons. Its use HAS often been to allow players to save playtime rebuilding toons, but at higher cost - the lower cost this kind of reincarnation is, the less playtime is required to progress. At the bottom end of the spectrum, you would only ever need to level one or two toons, reincarnating them freely as needed or desired. There's a discussion to be had about whether the cost is at the golden mean, all things considered, but the bald assumption that factor y just happened to be exactly right before change x, will never stand on these forums. In my book, it was too low a cost before, and the increased cost of BUR books was a plus. If you want to make an argument for increased BUR droprate based on reincarnation costs, you need to fully support your premises. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 5:14:44 GMT
The wider than ever player power gap need not be a bad thing. My 140 million xp Wiz is still fighting to improve, and every new item that he finds holds the remote promise of doing just that. Keeping vets interested is a good thing. The down side of the wider than ever player power gap is, of course, how newer players feel about it. Fairly well said. The goodness or badness of the power gap is sort of irrelevant, however. The longer a player plays here, the more powerful they will be. Conversely, new players always start at 0. What is more important is the rates of change, the delta power gain, and that it not vary too wildly from point to point along the generic player's playtime. The gap itself is an inevitable result of rewards proportionate to playtime. Whining pretty much never factors into development decisions here. When that whining has at its root an actual problem is when we take notice. Ascribing the original change to something as trivial as whining is a complete mischaracterization. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 5:25:32 GMT
Some perspective on reinc - Reinc is NOT a tool for upgrading subraces. Here I disagree. It certainly is, the way reincarnation is implemented. It may not have been intended to be, but that does not change the fact that this exactly what it is used for. Of course you can argue that the problems players experience in abusing reinc in this way are their own damn problems, but that won't stop threads like this one. Of course you can argue that these threads are likewise their own damn problem. Yet I think that it would be better for game experience to implement a feature like reinc in a way that doesn't create major problems down the road, like the perceived need to create only BUR characters. I agreed with pretty much all of shard's post, but here in particular he fleshed out something I just touched on in earlier replies. Your reply to shard isn't terribly responsive, as the obverse claim, that actual use does not change developer intent, is equally valid. As shard notes, we've made allowances for players to use reincarnation for other purposes, at increased cost, because coding the system to limit it to ONLY the cases we want would be incredibly convoluted - so much so that it's simply prohibitive in development terms. If you want to argue for more lax use of reincarnation, you have an uphill battle, because it weighs heavily against the development considerations shard outlined in the post you replied to. About the only thing cutting your way is that, as the game ages, players are naturally less willing to invest large amounts of time in it. Either way, you'll actually have to argue the point, instead of resorting to semantics. You seemed ready to start doing that at the end of your post...and then didn't, settling for a couple bald assertions. Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 5:37:23 GMT
Perhaps the same thing needs be done with UR books as has been done for BUR books, make them one drop. That's pretty much what I've been thinking for the last couple pages, actually, all smilies aside. It really should've been done in 2005-06, when UR sub value fell through the floor into the basement with the introduction of legendary levels and BUR loot. It would, as noted before, smooth the curve between open and BUR subs, and fix a lot of pricing distortions. Kind of a major change, though, so will probably make them count for three or four loot spots instead of just one, to offset some of the shock. Meanwhile, I'm thinking about doubling the number of loot spots BUR books get to 2, making them about 1/70 instead of 1/137 or whatever it is at present (that number will be getting higher in a few days with the introduction of new burs). Funky
|
|
|
Post by FunkySwerve on Jan 20, 2012 5:45:47 GMT
Shardelay, to avoid a convoluted over-quoted post I'll just say that for various reasons (e.g. like me, you likely built your UR toons before there were BUR races), I stand by my analysis, and we can just agree to disagree on the particulars that you take issue with. They appear to be moot anyway, since we agree on the crux of the matter, when you state: "When I play, it FEELS like the drop rate is too low". You just can't figure out why, having in your mind "shot all (my) points down", thus clearly missing the points. Bad idea. He did shoot down your points, and understanding his analysis both there and in his previous post is pretty key to understanding why the dev team does what it does. Few people have as good a bead on the theoretical foundations of our development process (socioeconomic and otherwise). Props on the diamonds link, btw, Shard. If it makes you feel better, though, you're also basically correct on the mootness of his shootdown, since the perception that the drop rate is too low has a lot to do with what is driving the end development decision, other considerations aside. Where it was not moot is in helping you to understand the why of what we decide, and why a lot of the arguments you offered up simply weren't relevant to that decision. That's not a dig at you, either - there are some fairly complicated considerations at work, and advocating one way or the other is not at all easy. Funky
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2012 7:30:35 GMT
Well player perception IS obviously a problem, if the poll here and majority opinion serves as any kind of justification. It is not a problem. It is obviously something that people are posting alot on, but I can't draw any further conclusions than that from the solitary fact that alot of people post that they want better loot. There is no evidence to say it is a problem right now. It is a staple of online forums and MMORPG's. It's a negative sampling bias lumped on top of an abstracted communication layer. I.e. ppl who are pissed post alot more than people who are happy, and on the internet it's EASY to say outrageous things because noone will smack you in the face (to be clear, im NOT suggesting you are being outrageous here or that you need a whooping! To the contrary you've been quite civil!) The most interesting thing (to me) about objective facts as regards any kind or organized group human interaction is just how much the majority perception affects the outcome of the group interaction and the organization its self. It is one of those odd things about society and economics, that is easy to dismiss in an academic way as "intangible and thus irrelevant", yet its true relevance outweighs almost any other single factor. Perception as a phenomenon is FACT, even if the content of said perception is not. How much of a problem the perception that BUR sub drops are exceedingly rare is really up to the dev team to quantify. If retention of newer and part time players is at all a goal of the dev team then the fact of this group-perception needs to be dealt with. My points were simply suggestions how this might be dealt with, without disrupting the balance of the game too much. Player perception as expressed on the message boards is miles away from action as expressed in game hours played - and game hours played is what matters for server health. Sure the msg boards have a sort of feedback loop there, but it is FAR FAR FAR smaller than it feels. We who post alot on the boards get easily caught up in that, forgetting that the real game is a login away. In your years here, how often have you seen dev cater to the whims of player perception? BFM nerfs? Randomized loot? Ruby rod changes? LT nerfs? If things were done differently, the server would have died years ago. You guys are the experts where perception affects hours-logged, so I defer. With all that you said, (feedback loops, layered shield modulation reverse amplitude impulse conversion etc.) I take from it that you are saying that by not catering to to the whim of many players, HG is actually more fun in the long term. I get that. I want A LOT of chocolate-peautbutter ice cream pie, I want to just shove it i my face and bathe in the rush of yummy induced endorphins. But after a day or two of that I am not going to even want to look at it or think abut it.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2012 7:39:38 GMT
I hate to bring up another Hades farming anecdote but, for instance in Oinos UR books are probably the most common UR I see, period, excepting maybe another consumable like Draughts or something--I dunno if they're R or UR or what, Power Orbs, stuff like that. Trap kits and UR books and Draughts...welcome to Hades! Kind of off-topic but what I find most of in Hades are augmenters, and some really good ones. Other than that, unappraised gems, UR's and actually quite a few BUR's and solid level 50 weapons. I would not want hades to ever be the "I wan a bur sub so I'll farm hades for a bit".
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Jan 20, 2012 7:48:23 GMT
I have to say it again:
There are a ton of the formerly "too common" BUR races floating around in chests, or read by players. There are so many because the drop rate was too high for that group. Wouldn't it make sense to be able to trade in 3 "read" BUR Races for 1 that the player wants but does not already have? What the player would lose is use of those 3 BUR races in return for use of that 1 of his choice. He would NOT get the book, just the 'tag', as if he had read the book.
This would result in LESS BUR races amongst the players overall which should increase their value proportionately without doing anything to the drop rate. Maybe I am the only 1 who would trade shard, half-fiend, and juggernaut for HG or RG, but it does seem like a good idea.
|
|